“Run!” ordered Jungkook, and no one complained about following the lead of the youngest.

All three of them sprinted away from the small grove of trees they had been sitting in, and scrambled again over the rock-laden, root-twisted ground. The hellhound kept up in hot pursuit, but eventually Taehyung grabbed both of the other boys, and pulled them behind a large boulder, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.

“,” muttered Taehyung. “; how did we miss that?” His eyes were closed, but he opened them to glare accusingly at Jimin. “Were you seriously not paying attention to where the stupid thing was?!”

The connection was growing stronger, but Jimin was still having trouble pinpointing where the hellhound was in relation to them. His best guess was that it was somewhere off to their right, but he couldn’t be sure about how far away it was standing.

“Sorry,” he wheezed. “I’m sorry; I lost it.”

“What?” There was panic in Taehyung’s voice now, and Jimin looked up to see fear in the younger man’s eyes. “That’s not supposed to happen. What do you mean you lost it?”

“I mean I can’t tell where the goddamn thing is,” whimpered Jimin. “We’re basically blind out here, okay?”

“When were you gonna tell us that, Jimin? Huh?” growled Taehyung. “Thanks to you now we’re worse off than sitting ducks.”

“Guys, stop fighting,” commanded Jungkook, which shut both the other boys up. “We don’t know where that thing is, which means that it could be anywhere. We have to be quiet until we know what’s-”

The youngest man was abruptly cut off by a thundering growl that came from above and behind them on the rock.

“Oh, double .”

✧✧✧

The entire forest was a blur as Jimin tore himself away from the rock, following closely behind Jungkook, who was already peeling away at lightning speed. Taehyung stumbled after both of them, nearly losing his balance as he stepped over a large pine knot.

The growling was threefold, and it nipped directly at their backs as Jimin ran despite the streams of tears and sweat, not daring to look back at the hellhound’s foaming mouth or shimmering eyes. Suddenly, his phone buzzed in his pocket, and Jimin reached for it out of habit as his legs pumped furiously on autopilot.

To his astonishment, it was another text from Yoongi, and the message glowed on-screen as Jimin read it hurriedly.

“Hey! Jin said you were doing okay, but I just wanted to wish you a good night - and remind you to be careful of any monsters, haha.”

The winky face at the end of the line of words mocked Jimin as he silently cursed his friend. Yoongi wasn’t always in this much of a cheeky, joking mood, but whenever he was it was always at the most inopportune of times.

“Dude, really?” grumbled Taehyung as he caught up to Jimin and looked at the phone in the older man’s hand.

“If we weren’t running for our lives right now, I think you’d really appreciate the irony of the text I just got,” Jimin rasped while shoving the phone back in his pocket.

Jungkook was visible just ahead of the two other men as they wove in and out of the trees, narrowly avoiding the more low-hanging branches. The three-headed dog was still right behind them, pursuing the two panting men relentlessly as they struggled to keep up with their younger companion. Taehyung was starting to lag behind again, and Jimin tried to encourage him, pushing the younger man on until it looked like he was straining past his limit.

✧✧✧

Before Jimin had a chance to react, Taehyung collapsed and rolled to a stop on the ground, yelling loudly as he tripped over a thick branch and went flying. Jimin didn’t think. He rushed to offer Taehyung his hand, and had just finished pulling the taller man to his feet when the huge canine came roaring through the trees, pausing when it locked onto Jimin with its crimson eyes.

The young man dropped Taehyung’s hand. Something in the pit of his chest seemed to shift as he gazed into one of the head’s blaringly red, pupil-less eyes. His stomach sank, and he tasted the metallic tinge of blood as he realized he was biting down on his own tongue hard enough to pierce it.

“...Anyone who looks a hellhound in the eyes more than once is pretty much guaranteed to die.”

The tether attaching Jimin’s consciousness to the physical form of the hellhound felt as if it was swallowing him up - consuming Jimin until the only thing he could feel was absolute dread, and the only thing he could see was the dog’s blood red eyes. He was distantly aware of Jungkook shouting and Taehyung moving beside him, but for now, the only thing that mattered in Jimin’s world was the monstrous, radiantly menacing dog in front of him.

One of the hellhound’s heads barked ferociously, and the middle head next to it snapped at the more vocal one. The third one continued to stare at Jimin, holding his eyes in a steely, unbreaking gaze. The beast was standing perfectly still, and Jimin could practically see the fur standing upright on its hackles in the shimmering moonlight. Its black pelt rippled as the creature prepared to lunge.

“Hey! Over here, you ugly motherer!”

The hellhound’s three heads all snapped in the direction of the noise, and Jimin followed them to see Taehyung, who was perched on a fallen tree trunk directly next to the monster with a large rock hoisted over his sweaty, glistening head.

“Eat rock, you disgusting mutt.”

With that, Taehyung flung the small boulder with all his might, crushing two of the dog’s three heads with the enormous weight of the rock. He tumbled backwards from the exertion, but quickly recovered as he pulled a hidden knife from the inside of his boot, and plunged the blade into the final, unsquashed head.

“You got him!” exalted Jungkook as he popped out from behind the rotting trunk, and Taehyung fell in a crumpled heap at the younger man’s feet.

✧✧✧

Jimin snapped out of his trance to scramble toward the fallen man, kneeling down to examine his friend as the latter looked up at him with a tired smile.

“What’d I tell ya? he slurred. “Invisible, but surprisingly vulnerable to falling rocks.”

Taehyung coughed as he sat upright, laughing with what Jimin could only assume was a mix of relief and hysteria. He pushed himself to his feet, and brushed the dust off his now once again wrinkled and messy dress shirt and jeans.

“But… how were you able to see it?” gaped Jimin.

“Like I said, sometimes people get lucky,” chuckled Taehyung. “Also, Jungkookie here told me where to aim.” He bent to inspect the body of the dead three-headed dog. “And it really helped that this thing lost its cloaking ability when I dropped the rock on it. Very interesting.”

Taehyung was starting to use his official, monster hunting voice again, so Jimin stepped over to study the carcass as well while the younger man ran his hands through its matted fur.

“You can see it now?” inquired Jimin.

“Boy can I,” Taehyung scoffed. “And I was just goin’ off a hunch when I called it ugly-” he continued, “but holy hell is it hideous.”

Jimin thought that the blood that had already started to coagulate around the dog’s wounds didn’t do much to help matters, but even he had to admit that the creature was horrendous looking. The beast rivaled the very best of his childhood nightmares - even in its current, foretunately deceased state. The uncrushed head’s snarled teeth were yellow even in the dim moonlight, and its eyes still glowed faintly beneath its closed lids.

✧✧✧

“You know,” started Taehyung, stretching as he stood upright, “I never used to want to waste my time studying unicorns and nymphs and - but now I feel like maybe that would be a welcome break from all the monsters. Y’know?”

“But what about your assignment?” Jimin wondered tentatively.

Taehyung’s ridiculous helmet had been lost in the shuffle back at the mansion, and the rest of his myriad of devices were nowhere to be found either.

“Don’t you need to collect evidence or something to give to whoever hired you to study the hellhounds in the first place?”

“Yeah,” conceded Taehyung. “But I’d say it’s a little dangerous to go back to the portal at this point; wouldn’t you? You’ve already narrowly escaped death once, I’m pretty sure I’ve looked into this thing’s eyes at least one time without realizing it, and Jungkookie probably did, too, before I warned him what would happen if he did it more than once.”

The younger man nodded in agreement, and Taehyung cracked his knuckles as he simultaneously flexed his elbows.

“I’d say hellhounds are pretty much off the table for all of us,” concluded the orange-haired man. “And let’s just hope that we never happen to run into one again.”

Jimin concurred with this sentiment wholeheartedly, as did Jungkook with a sharp nod of his head.

“Besides, I think this will be more than enough evidence for my employer to pocket.”

Taehyung stooped down to wiggle his knife out of the skull of the hellhound’s third head, the dog’s deep burgundy blood still dripping from the short blade. He wrapped the blade in a cloth to preserve his sample before stuffing it in a back pocket.

“I’ll give someone a call about getting all this cleaned up tomorrow,” remarked Taehyung as he gestured to the large corpse lying in front of them. “It’d be too big and heavy for any of us to drag out of here, but I’m sure the government has their means for dealing with like this.”

Jimin and Jungkook’s eyes widened as Taehyung let slip the identity of his mysterious employer, and the latter broke out into a mischievous smirk.

“Whoops; did I just say that out loud?” he laughed with poorly-executed mock regret. “Well, forget I ever said anything.”

✧✧✧

The young cryptozoologist stood confidently at the edge of the dense woods, his hands on his hips and his companions flanking him on either side. The three men gazed across the gravel parking lot to where Taehyung’s beaten-up, shockingly green car remained parked where he and Jimin had left it, and the latter took a refreshing breath of night air. It felt good to be alive, and even better to be surrounded by people he trusted.

“Thanks for stopping to help me up back there,” Taehyung said sheepishly to Jimin. “And sorry I snapped at you. I really wouldn’t have been able to do this without you.”

“Same here,” Jimin smiled in return.

“What are you guys gonna do now?” wondered Jungkook, a small grin gracing his own bright pink lips.

“Whatever we want, I guess,” answered Taehyung. “You wanna tag along, or…?”

“Hell yeah!” exclaimed Jungkook. “You guys are awesome.”

Jimin didn’t know if “awesome” was the exact word he would choose to describe the series of almost-deadly, energy-sapping events that had led up to this moment, but at this point he was almost too tired to care. He was glad to have at least made several new friends in the new and exciting world of Sensors and monsters - even if the experience wasn’t always exactly void of danger. Hoseok had been right; partnership was both rewarding and necessary in a world where the things that went bump in the night weren’t always just in your imagination, and Jimin felt that he had found it in the form of a messy-haired, chaotic young man by the name of Kim Taehyung.

“Well, gentlemen,” Taehyung boomed with excitement as he wrapped a long arm around each of the his companion’s tired shoulders. “I think the only thing that’s left to say now is: let’s see what the hell else is out there.”

When this started out, it was meant to be a ten-page-or-less one shot, but that soooo did not happen. I just kept getting more ideas and writing more things, and before I knew it all my Vmin feelings had poured out into a word document and I was looking at a 20,000+ word, multi-chaptered fic. Whoops, lol. How’d that happen?

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I had a ton of fun writing this and would love to hear what other people think about it. I’m open to any and all comments and criticisms, so don’t be shy! Thank you for reading, and have a nice day ^_^

Don’t let the hellhounds bite…